I have been busy thinking and dreaming of various Bulgarian Recipes, trying to think of at least 1 great, tasty Bulgarian dish to blog about, and guess what? I found TWO, yayyy.

The people of Expedia got in touch, and challenged me to get involved in their World on a Plate challenge, which is simply, creating a Bulgarian meal from scratch and sharing with you guys. I have never been to Bulgaria, and I am not a food blogger, but I always up for a challenge, and if you have been reading Fashion and Style Police for a while, you should know that by now. Remember my last food challenge with Travelodge, I am always eager to do something new, so here I am, going ahead with this World on a Plate challenge.

I was sent a HUGE hamper filled up with Bulgarian goodies; Bulgarian cheese, yoghurt, pork, meat, wine, biscuits, pasta, tea, semolina, name it, I received it.I also received a Voucher to cover the costs of anything else I might need to cook up the dish. Armed with the food stuffs, voucher and some extensive research (took me weeks to finally decide on what to make), I decided to go for two recipes, Meatballs in rich tomato sauce also known as Kyufteta po Chirpanski, and Semolina Porridge with fruit.

 

Semolina porridge with fruit

I choose this recipe because it is fast, easy, and does not require a lot of ingredients. I wanted something a bit plain, for the kids to enjoy so I thought this would be a great option. I also wanted a quick dish, and this was done in under 30 minutes.

 

 

Time preparation

10 minutes

Cooking time

15 minutes

Serves:

2

 

Ingredients

6 tablespoons semolina

180 ml water

2 apples

2 tsp of sunflower oil

50ml  orange, mango and passion fruit juice

 

Method of Preparation
1. Boil the Semolina in water while stirring.
2. Cut the apples into small chunks, and boil in some orange, mango and passion fruit juice.
3. Mash the apples up.
4. Add the mashed apples to the cooked semolina, add oil, stir and serve warm.

 

I found this dish very different but tasty. It is completely different from porridges I am used to, but I liked it, and the kids loved it as well. It is a great dish to offer children from 6 months, and I had fun playing around with this recipe, so a win-win.

 

Meatballs in rich tomato sauce

I wanted to incorporate some meatballs into the second recipe. Meatballs dishes are Bulgarian classics, they are amongst the most popular Bulgarian recipes, so I decided to go for the famous Meatballs in rich tomato sauce.

 

Time Preparation

10 minutes

Cooking Time

25 minutes

Ingredients

600g Meatballs

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove of garlic

1 can of chunky chopped tomatoes in tomatoes juice

1 cooking spoon of sunflower oil

1 big red pepper

1 small red pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tsp curry

1 tsp thyme

 

Method of Preparation

1. Heat up the sunflower oil
2. Fry the meatballs along with the garlic, turning it frequently for 5 minutes
3. Put in the blended tomatoes, onions, and peppers.
4. Stir and leave to boil for 10 minutes
5. Add salt, curry and thyme.
6. Leave to boil for another 10 minutes (or until the oil comes to the top of the sauce).
7. Serve warm

 

 

We enjoyed this Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with some Bulgarian pasta, but you can also have it with rice, semolina or bread.

Taking part in this challenge opened my eyes to yummy world of the Bulgarian cuisines, and I will be playing around with the rest of the goodies over the Christmas holidays.

Have you ever had a Bulgarian dish? What do you think of these recipes? Drop me a comment, let’s chat.

Thanks for reading and have a fab day.

 

*This is a collaborative post.